Archive for category Week In Review

Starting today I’m going to be doing up a Friday Political Week In Review (PWIR) posts throughout the campaign. The summer is going to be a bit slow regarding political news, but these posts come fall will be beneficial to my readers to catch up on the busy election campaign and political news.

In this weeks post:

The Canadian Senate extends middle finger to Canadian tax payers three times

Becoming an art dealer is not okay with CBC political journalism ethics, however intentionally misleading Canadians in newscasts for political gain is ethical

Prime Minister Harper throws poutine at Russian frigates, than refuses to ask the Pope for forgiveness

Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose outraged by Supreme Court Decision to list pot as a “drug”

Busy week in Canadian politics so lets get to it. If you are a Liberal than you are definitely not where you want to be.

On Tuesday the Auditor General released his findings regarding the senate expenses. 9 Senators have been referred to the RCMP for questionable expenses and possible fraud charges. Also on Tuesday the Senate voted approval on the controversial anti-terror legislation bill c51 after widespread public opposition. The final vote count Yay, 44. Nay, 28. Abstentions, 0 which passed with applause from Conservative senators. The final slap in the face to Canadian tax payers is that the Senate is going to court on the public dime to try and block key details about Senator’s residencies.

The CBC this week announced that it has fired political talk show host Evan Solomon. Solomon was a hard hitting political journalist and hosted “Power and Politics”. Solomon was let go after a Toronto Star investigation found evidence that Solomon was using his position to sell art on the side, in which CBC executives state was against ethical standards. Meanwhile CBC’s internal e-mails point to chief anchor Peter Mansbridge being one of the masterminds behind a collaborative effort among major broadcasters to intentionally mislead Canadians back in the fall of 2014 on Canadian law to stop political attack ads. Mansbridge could end up facing criminal charges as a result, and is still employed by the CBC.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week stood on the deck of Canadian frigate HMCS Fredericton and started yelling at passing Russian warships about Russia’s military advances in Ukraine. Later Harper met with Pope Francis and refused to ask the pope to address the truth and reconciliation report in which Canadian Aboriginals were abused at Catholic schools. A key recommendation in that report was to get the Pope to recognize what happened and for the church to ask for forgiveness.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled this week that it is unconstitutional for medical pot users to be forced to smoke the drug. Smoking the drug (the court found) is detrimental to the health of medical pot users. Legal dispensaries will now be able to sell “baked goods” such as brownies, cookies for those who need the medicinal uses of pot rather than to just smoke it. In a press conference Health Minister Rona Ambrose slammed the Supreme Court decision stating pot was not an authorized drug from Health Canada and that the Courts should have no say on what a “drug” is. That decision Ambrose said, “should be up to Health Canada to decide.”

Latest Ekos poll results now show NDP starting to get a commanding lead at the expense of the Liberal and Conservative position on the new anti-terror bill. The NDP is now at 34%, Conservatives 27%, and the Liberals 23% (which is getting close to Stephane Dion territory which is pretty low for the Liberals). I had an interesting twitter conversation about the new anti-terror bill and the Liberal position on it with Liberal MP Wayne Easter (who sat in the House of Commons committee on this bill and is probably one of the masterminds of the Liberal position behind it). The full conversation is here.

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